This Day in 1913 in The Record: Jan. 17, 1913

Friday, Jan. 17, 1913. Investigators now suspect that the men who broke into the Watervliet post office earlier this week made a stop in a Troy blacksmith shop first to get their burglary tools, The Record reports.

The unknown burglars remain at large two days after their handiwork was discovered. They broke in late Tuesday night or very early Wednesday morning after forcing their way through an alley gate adjoining the building. They made off with no more than $25 without attempting to open the post office safe.

Since the initial discovery investigators have found some of the tools the burglars used. Among these are a wrench that had been fashioned from the spoke of a wagon wheel. As late as yesterday, police were still finding tools in the vicinity of the post office. They recovered two chisels and a sledgehammer from the alley between the post office and a neighboring foundry.

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Sometime on Tuesday night, burglars took those tools from a Troy blacksmith, according to Troy police detectives. That the suspects either chose to or had to steal their tools adds to the uncertainty about their professional background.

"The identification of the tools put the police on a different track from the one which they had been following," our Watervliet reporter explains, "They are now convinced that none of the local celebrities [i.e. known burglars] had anything to do with the job. Some of them are inclined to believe that professional cracksmen entered the office and were scared away while they were making preparations to blow the safe. Others are just as firm in the opinion that the robbery was committed by amateurs because the character of tools found is not of that usually carried by professionals, although they may have had more delicate apparatus with them that was too valuable to leave behind when they hurried away."

STATE LEAGUE BASKETBALL. When a well-rested first-place Troy five hosts the last-place Cohoes team at the Troy Armory tonight in the visitors' fourth game of the week, most fans expet an easy time for the defending champions.

"The fond expectations of Troy were not to be realized," our sportswriter notes, "as the visitors tore after them from the first clang of the gong, got the first point, never dropped far behind and hammered so hard at Troy's defense that it looked as if the champions would have to put up the white flag."

Cohoes leads 16-14 at halftime, but Troy takes command after the intermission, charged by Ed Wachter's 19 points. In one of the season's highest-scoring games, the Trojans hang on for a 42-38 victory.